"The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There is no innocence. Either way, you're accountable."
— Arundhati Roy

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Values & Principles

I strive to be inclusive of, accessible to, and affirming of all bodies/minds, identities, and people in my work. That means, but isn't necessarily limited to ...

People of all faith traditions, spiritualities, or lack thereof, especially marginalized faiths or belief systems in the communities I inhabit, including atheists, humanists, and agnostics, whether lifelong or (de)converted;

People of all a/sexualities and a/romantic orientations, including marginal sexual and romantic identities and experiences such as the entire asexual and aromantic spectrum, folks with queer identities, sexual minorities, or anyone else under the LGBTQIAP+ (or QUILTBAG) umbrella, and other people with highly stigmatized sexual experiences such as sex workers, polyamorous folks, members of the kink and BDSM communities;

People of all gender identities and expressions, including marginal gender identities and expressions such as the entirety of the trans umbrella, non-binary and genderqueer folks, gender-nonconforming folks, agender and genderless folks, women (both transwomen and ciswomen), and female, feminine-identified, or feminine-read folks;

People of all body types and appearances, including fat people, people with cosmetic disabilities, disfigurements, scarring, or deformities, and folks with tattoos, piercings, or other body modifications;

People of all neurological, mental, and body types, including those with both apparent and hidden disabilities; people with formal medical/psychiatric diagnoses and people who self-identify with disability; people born disabled and people later disabled; people who prefer person-first and people who prefer identity-first language; people out as disabled and people who do not (or can't safely) identify publicly; people who might identify with specific labels or diagnoses or people who don't identify with any particular label or diagnosis; people who identify with disability through madness, trauma, fatness, sickness, deformity, or any other unconventional disability experience; people with body dysphoria about function and experience who identify as transabled; and anyone whose bodies/minds simply work atypically or differently than usual;

People of all racial, ethnic, or national backgrounds, particularly Black, Brown, Latinx, Indigenous or Native, Asian, Jewish, Mixed-Race or Multiracial, or other people of color, otherwise racialized people, as well as undocumented folks, stateless folks, refugees, and other seasonal or permanent migrants;

People of all socio-economic backgrounds and money statuses, including working class people, poor or low-income people, homeless people, and people without formal education or higher education (whether by choice or circumstance);

People of all ages, especially those who experience ageism either because they are (or are perceived as) children or youth or because they are (or are perceived as) old or elderly; and

People who communicate ideas in all forms, including those who communicate best face-to-face, in text, by typing, online, using manual languages, using pictures or graphs, using nonverbal body movements, or any other form of communication.

This stance is part of my political belief and practice, which are anti-oppression, anti-imperialism, anti-racism, and anti-kyriarchy at their core. I believe in intersectional activism and organizing for transformative, intersectional justice, and collective liberation from our many oppressions. I believe in deferring to those most directly impacted by any issue in learning about that issue and how to best be an ally to members of the affected community.

(Content: The examples given in the examples below discuss specific violence against specific groups of people, including sexual violence.)

When I use the word "oppression," I mean prejudice or prejudiced values that are backed by an entire system of power relations. This happens both formally (like through laws, policies, and academic research) and informally (like in mass media, popular culture, and everyday language). Specific example: Believing that being disabled is worse than being dead, then supporting lenience for a parent who murders their disabled child supposedly out of desperation or mercy.

When I use the word "imperialism," I mean when a nation-state is expanding its power and domination to exercise social, political, and economic control other nations or people through force and violence. Specific example: When the United States government created laws and policies that forced indigenous Americans into small areas (reservations) and then forced their children to go to schools where they weren't allowed to speak their own language anymore, while also sterilizing some indigenous women and imprisoning many indigenous men; this was all after and during more obvious genocide of indigenous peoples.

When I use the word "racism," I mean prejudice against people of color as a form of structural oppression that treats white people as both default and idealized while at the same time harming anyone who is not white. (Note that all racism is not identical, and that different groups of people of color experience different types of racism and racial trauma.)Specific example: Police and citizens alike can get away with murdering Black and Brown people as long as they claim it was in self-defense, because of widespread unconscious fear that Black and Brown people are more dangerous than white and light-skinned people.

When I use the word "kyriarchy," I mean all systems of oppressions as they work together, feed into each other, support each other, and depend on each other to survive, persist, and spread. All systems of oppression are both necessary for and dependent on every other system of oppression to exist and perpetuate.Specific example: When people read as women report being raped, they are often told that they aren't capable of understanding what happened to them because they have mental issues. When people with intellectual disabilities report being raped, they are often told that specifically because of their disabilities, they can't understand what happened and are therefore unreliable as witnesses or reporters. When people of color report being raped by white people, they're less likely to be believed because the white people are assumed to be more reliable and truthful.

Justice is for all, not "just us."

I believe in working to support justice and liberation as much as possible, and in whatever ways are possible -- and that socioeconomic class, age, disability, or other factors (like safety and needing to be closeted about certain identities to survive) can make various types of participation or activism impossible or dangerous. I believe that every individual is the expert on their own needs, capacities, experiences, and body. I don't believe in shaming anyone for not participating in any given campaign or talking about any given topic, because self-care is actually important. Instead, I believe in building networks of mutual support and interdependence.

I don't believe in using language litmus tests to determine who is a good activist and who isn't. Everyone is at different places in their learning processes, and many factors (especially disability and education related) affect how people can use or change their language. I believe that people's ideas and actions are the best way to judge their intentions and their character.

I strive to be an ally to communities that I am not part of, but will not always succeed. I try to fix mistakes when I make them. I appreciate friends, colleagues, and strangers who take the time to hold me accountable when I do make mistakes. I try to hold myself and others accountable, but I also believe in having mercy and compassion when we make mistakes, because everyone is part of oppressive systems, just in varying degrees of complicity and consciousness. This is not an excuse to let oppressive behavior or actions slide, but a recognition that everyone is constantly learning and growing, and that accountability has to come with compassion.

I believe that we need each other to dismantle oppressive systems. Our communities and connections to each other are important. We have responsibilities to ourselves and to each other to be both accountable and compassionate. Just as our oppressions depend on each other to survive, achieving liberation will require collective action.

this page last updated November 2016, but due for at least a partial re-write soon

8 comments:

I have this friend who wants to start a certain ARM organization that is aligned with a group that waves a certain flag with a snake on it that says "Don't Tread On Me". He says it's for the better of our community and especially important to our survival...what do you think?

Assuming you mean "autism rights movement" organization -- It's not my job to police everyone else's ideas or politics, but personally, it's not an alliance I would make especially considering the other political stances and values of many people affiliated with those groups.

I'm actually a genderqueer trans person, though I've only recently started talking and thinking about this (as in, the past couple years, literally). I've heard other trans people weigh in on both sides of that argument, and the arguments on both sides make sense to me, though I have by and large stopped using the asterisk, mainly because it's too complicated to remember to write it anyway.

I'm queer, so, I do get to use that term, and while I know not everyone who might fall under the definition of who is meant by that word likes it, uses it, or is comfortable with it, it is commonly and widely used in our community, but that's why I also use the acronym too. I don't know whether you are queer, trans, or any other identity under the LGBTQIAP umbrella, or not, but you shouldn't be telling me what words I can't use to describe a community I do belong to.

Hello. My name is Christopher Brooks and I am being incarcerated at Peter Lougheed hospital in Calgary, Alberta in Unit 27. I am unsure if it is appropriate for me to do this, but I'm desperate and any help-requests for my release or anything else-would be greatly appreciated. I am not a danger to myself or anything else and in fact the only thing they have on me is 'deteriorated hygeine'(fair, I hadn't washed my hair in a month but that's hardly a reason to lock someone who values freedom above anything else up!) combined with a prior diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder(a diagnosis that does not take my full history into account*, I AM bipolar and actually like this part of myself and would prefer to manage it without medication but I am afraid that option might be taken from me and... I don't know what I would do if so; I am also fairly sure I am autistic given said full history which includes the fact the school repeatedly asked my mother for testing to that effect which she refused; would take too long to go into history here but suffice it to say that in looking at the diagnostic criteria for ASD I recognize myself perfectly).

The points of absurdity of my situation include the the demand that someone who is noise-sensitive eat in a crowded dining room.

*I am not saying that anything is wrong with having the mind-states that can be called schizoaffective disorder, but my only 'delusions or hallucinations' have been those that are well-accepted as standard within my religion, I did not have any sudden onset of 'psychotic' symptoms at any point in my life, I do not in ANY way benefit from the standard treatment for schizoaffective disorder and I feel that the associations of this disorder are being used to argue for a progressive deterioration that is not in fact the case which is being used to strip away my basic human rights.

I am undergoing an appeal process for my certificate, the hearing date is on July 11th 9:15 AM. Like I said, any help from anyone would be appreciate and I am sorry if this is not an appropriate thing to post in this space.

Hi! Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. I manually approve comments, so sometimes it takes a few weeks, months, or even years to find and approve comments. This delay is normal. (Note that I also don't publish every comment, since this is my personal blog.) Unfortunately, anonymous commenting isn't available anymore since it resulted in over one million spam comments in a short period.

Autistic Hoya strives to be

Can't access my stuff?

If anything on this site is inaccessible to you for any reason, let me know how I can fix the problem or do better. I am in the process of making audio recordings of the more popular posts on this blog, which you can hear at Soundcloud.

Sharing my stuff

I believe in spreading good ideas and helping start critical dialogue. If you want to share (or republish, or teach, or link to, or quote, or talk about) my writing, please feel free to do so as long as (a) you're not making money off of my writing, (b) you do not edit, redact, or censor my writing (excerpts and quotes are fine),(c) you leave my name on whatever you republish or share, (d) you link back to this website or the specific page it came from, and (e) you shoot me an email letting me know where/how you shared my stuff. (If your use of my stuff meets these conditions, you automatically have permission and don't need to ask.) I strongly disprefer fully republished posts, but am not opposed in principle. If you want to share something from this site that I didn't personally write, shoot me an email so I can contact the actual author. If you want to use my writing for any purpose not covered by these conditions (i.e. you will make money off my writing), please ask me and do not assume you have my permission.

Header Image

Photo by Kory Otto-Jacobs, taken March 1st, 2013 in Farragut Square Park, Washington, DC, United States, for the National Day of Mourning vigil for disabled people murdered by family members or caregivers. This is an annual observance that was originally organized by autistic activist Zoe Gross in 2012 following the murder of 22-year-old autistic man George Hodgins by his mother.

This is a cropped, horizontal banner style black and white photograph depicting one of the vigils and its participants (who are of various races, genders, and dis/ability statuses), including Kerima Çevik, Nuri Çevik, Patrick Cokley, Yoshiko Dart, Chad Carson, Linda Finder, Barbara Platt, Taylor C. Hall, and Samantha Bodwell, who is holding a large poster with a photo and the name of Benjamin Barnhard. Lydia Brown (that's me) is in the middle with their back to the viewer. Many participants are holding cameras, video, recorders, or phones. There is an American Sign Language interpreter. This picture shows about 16 people.

Boring legal stuff

Links offsite are not to be construed as endorsement or acceptance of the ideas and opinions expressed therein. Nothing that I have written on any part of this website represents in any way any of the official opinions, beliefs, policies, or platforms of any organization, institution, or entity of any kind with which I am now or have at any time been either formally or informally affiliated or associated, nor is any content from this website endorsed, condoned, or approved by any such organization, institution, or entity except where explicitly stated by such an organization, institution, or entity on its own publication or website. I do not warrant that access to this website and its contents will be uninterrupted or error free, nor do I make any warranty as to the results that may be obtained from the use of this website and its contents, or as to the accuracy, reliability, completeness, or contents of any content, information, material, postings, or posting responses found on this website or any links to other sites made available on the website.

If you need to serve process to me for whatever reason (I hope you're not suing me?), you can email the documents to me as a scanned attachment if your jurisdiction allows electronic service of process, or to request an address or fax number if your jurisdiction does not. I'm in law school; it'll be a practical learning experience (if not exactly the one I want to have).